


The Love Lock

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Grantaire visit Paris, and decide to try love locks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love Lock

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Inspired By This Tumblr Post](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/30687) by Gr4n-taire. 



Enjolras came awake with a quiet groan as Grantaire straddled his hips, shaking him gently. "Gran _taire_ -"

"It's eleven o'clock, man, time to get up." Grantaire cut through the blond's grumblings with no qualms about it, and Enjolras let out a loud, desperate sigh, shoving his face against the pillow to hide from Grantaire's eyes and the light streaming in through the hotel window. "Oh, come on, my sleeping beau."

Enjolras groaned as Grantaire pulled him up, but he blinked drowsily awake, running a hand over his face and through his hair. "Now, while you're in the shower..." Grantaire held up two padlocks, one red and one green. "Le Pont des Arts  _ou_  Le Pont de l'Archevêché,  _mon petit ami_?" 

Enjolras stared at him, and then his lips quirked into a smile. "You want to do the padlocks?"

"I do.  _Les cadenas d'amour_."

" _Les cadenas d'amour_." Enjolras repeated, smiling a little, and pulled himself from the bed to stumble towards the en suite. Enjolras took his sweet time in the shower, even though the water pressure wasn't fantastic and the water not as hot as he would have liked.

Paris had been Grantaire's idea. Enjolras had been delighted when he'd said yes, fascinated by the idea of traversing the streets of Paris, where so many revolutions, where so much  _history_ , had occurred. Grantaire did not truly share Enjolras' passion for la vie Parisienne, and he definitely did not really share Enjolras' liking for large cities especially, but he was enjoying himself.

They'd stayed out until three or four in the morning the night before, Enjolras was fairly certain, and while Grantaire could function on little sleep, Enjolras struggled to do the same.

Enjolras had never considered him or Grantaire romantic men by any stretch of the word, but walking down the footpath of the Champs-Élysées, hand in hand, Grantaire in his green beanie and Enjolras in a ridiculous red beret Grantaire had not allowed him to remove, head leaned just a little against the brunet's shoulder, Enjolras had considered they must look to be intoxicated sweethearts to even the most casual passer-by.

The love locks had been a nice idea. Jehan had mentioned them first, and Enjolras hadn't heard of them, but Grantaire had. He had hummed when Enjolras had looked to him, and then he'd said, "Yes, I'd like to do that."

It was a simple idea. One took a padlock, wrote one's lover's name upon it, and then  put it on the side of a bridge, and then its key was thrown into the river below: in order to say "I will never need to unlock this: my love is eternal."

It was sweet, poetic. Enjolras was not surprised Jehan loved it so.

The question of the bridge was a different one. Le Pont des Arts was said to be for those committed to their relationship, the Archevêché for one's lover. 

"Le Pont de l'Archevêché." He said quietly when he left the shower, roughly towelling thick hair with a towel, and Grantaire nodded, offering no argument. He wrote Enjolras' name on his padlock in marker, and offered Enjolras the pen to write Grantaire's.

There was something delightful about seeing Grantaire's name in black ink on the red of the padlock, and something that made Enjolras' heart flutter when he looked at his own on Grantaire's.

Their walk to the bridge was idle and slow, although the day was cold and they hadn't yet eaten breakfast. 

Enjolras was grinning as he picked out a spot, and both of them locked their padlocks into place. Enjolras threw his key, and Grantaire mimicked him.

They walked with their arms linked from there, heading for a nice café to breakfast and talk.

"I love you." Enjolras said.

" _Je t'adore. Tu es mon passion._ " Grantaire said, and then Enjolras was kissing him, hands disturbing Grantaire's hat as he reached up to put his fingers through Grantaire's hair, and Grantaire's askance of where Enjolras wanted to eat was lost against the other man's tongue.

\---

That had been a good six months ago now, and Enjolras still grinned as he thought of the weekend in Paris, the journey on the Eurostar. He was rifling through drawers in their shared apartment that morning, trying (and thus far, failing) trying to find a pressed penny he'd picked up to show Courfeyrac.

He stopped short when he saw a key, a small one not half the size of his little finger. He stared, dismayed, at the piece of metal as he picked it up between his thumb and forefinger, feeling for all the world like his heart had just dropped out of his chest cavity.

" _Meet me on the town bridge_." He sent the text to Grantaire even thought the downpour was thundering down onto the ground outside, thick, large drops pounding against the floor from a grey, heavy sky. Grantaire was studying in the library with Jehan and Bahorel, no doubt, but he was quick to respond all the same.

" _Wen_ "

" _NOW_."

" _???_ " Enjolras shoved his phone into his pocket, stalking out into the street. He'd find the penny later to take it to the Musain, for now, he had a confrontation to execute.

Grantaire was huddled in Bahorel's overcoat on the bridge, hair soaked and clinging to his head, mouth open, eyes wide as he regarded Enjolras. "What is it? Wha-" Enjolras held up the key, wordlessly, and Grantaire closed his mouth.

"Is this the key from my love lock? Yours? With my name on it?"

"Enjolras, I-"

"Shut  _up_ , Grantaire." Enjolras shoved the other man hard in the chest when Grantaire tried to move forwards, and Grantaire stumbled but didn't fall. "How fucking dare you? How fucking  _dare_  you-" Enjolras' heart hurt, and he was racked with anxiety, worry - Grantaire who was devoted to him, the only man Enjolras had ever loved in a romantic context, and he didn't even  _think_  they'd last.

Grantaire grabbed him by the lapels before he started to rant, pulling Enjolras forwards with a surprising strength until they were nearly nose to nose. "I kept it because I thought you'd grow tired of me. Everyone does. I was going to give you the key when you did, I was going to give you an out." Grantaire whispered the words and Enjolras barely heard them over the pound of the rain around them, but he stared at Grantaire with his agonized expression, his soaked hair, his teary eyes.

Enjolras let out a choked sound and put his hand to his mouth, but Grantaire grabbed the hand, wrenched the key from it, and threw it over the side of the bridge they were on now, not even looking as it dropped down and into the water. "I love you, I just thought that you'd- I mean, everyone does-"

" _Tu es un grand ingrat."_  Enjolras said in a strangled voice, and then he had his hands on Grantaire's hips and was pulling him close, lips on Grantaire's, hands on Grantaire's body, and Enjolras could feel the other man clinging to him like a rock in a storm - the first crash of thunder fell. "The Heavens agree with me." Enjolras whispered, and Grantaire laughed a little, hiding his face against the blond man's collar.

"I'm sorry."

"No, I shouldn't have exploded like that."

"I would do anything for you." Grantaire whispered, and Enjolras cupped his face, pressing his forehead to Grantaire's with his eyes closed.

"I know you would. I'd do the same." The next thunderclap was accompanied by a flash of lightning against a black sky, and Grantaire grabbed Enjolras' hand again before pulling the blond after him, towards Bahorel and Jehan's apartment.

They were shaking with cold once they got there, and Bahorel groaned as he took his coat from Grantaire and Enjolras' to put by the fire, letting Grantaire borrow a shirt of his to warm up. Enjolras, thinner and slighter than Grantaire, wore a pair of Jehan's pyjamas, even though the legs were a little too short for him.

They shivered on Bahorel and Jehan's couch, as Jehan waxed poetic about loving kisses in the rain, and Bahorel threatened to call Combeferre if Enjolras so much as thought about putting a foot out from under that blanket again.

"What the fuck was all that about anyway?" Bahorel asked, gesturing to the window where the storm raged outside. As if only just realizing the storm had begun, Jehan jolted a little, and then moved to grasp at his mobile and phone Bossuet to ask after Joly in a gentle tone.

"L'amour." Grantaire murmured with a flourish of his hand. 

"L'amour." Enjolras agreed, and Bahorel shook his head.

"Keep your amour inside next time." Bahorel advised, with no French inflection on the word, and Jehan nudged him in the hip.

"You're not pronouncing that right."

"Don't fucking care." Bahorel grumbled, and Jehan made no more argument because Bossuet had answered the phone, and Jehan was soon talking in a soothing tone to Joly about weather patterns and how the storm would soon be over. "You two hear me? No more possible fuckin' pneumonia for the sake of kissing."

"Can't make you any promises, Bahorel." Grantaire said, shaking his head with a grin like a Cheshire cat, but given that his teeth had only just stopped chattering a couple of minutes before, it was not as jesting as Bahorel usually would have taken it.

"Sometimes passion overtakes a man." Enjolras agreed sagely.

"Sometimes Bahorel is going to lock you in a fucking closet if you make yourself sick." He retorted, and Enjolras and Grantaire chuckled a little despite his tone, because Bahorel's worry was affectionate and well-intended, and because Bahorel was grinning as he poured out cocoa for the four of them.

"Joly's alright. He's in Musichetta's lap with Bossuet."

"Both of them are in her lap?" Bahorel repeated jokingly, and he scoffed. "I don't envy her. Joly is a deceptively weighty creature, and Bossuet's no better."

"Mmm." Jehan hummed, taking his mug and dropping a large handful of marshmallows into it, ignoring Bahorel's disgusted expression. 

"Thanks, Bahorel." Grantaire said lightly, and Enjolras repeated the utterance.

"Really though, are you guys okay? That whole scene isn't usually your thing."

"Just a misunderstanding." Enjolras said quietly. "My fault."

"That's the key to it." Grantaire said with a straight face, and Enjolras  _groaned_ _._

 _"_ I hate you." 

"Ah, my puns please the good master."

"Grantaire, I am anything but pleased."

"Oh?"

"Indeed." Bahorel shook his head, chuckling a little, and settled into his own seat.

"Idiots in love, eh, Jehan?" Prouvaire nodded, doodling absent-mindedly on a sheet before him, an entwined ivy and rose motif.

"The best kind of idiots, I find." Grantaire and Enjolras pressed closer together, sipping at their drinks, and Bahorel smiled as he regarded his friends.

"Yes." He agreed, amused by the colour to Enjolras' hot, embarrassed cheeks, and the smug grin on Grantaire's lips. "Yes, I think you're right."

 


End file.
